Editor's note: This column was written by Berlin resident Meg Anderson, a student at Middlebury College, along with her classmates studying this semester in northern Australia. The other students are: Ellie Linden (Colby College), Matty Norstad (Vassar College) and Grace O'Connor (Colby College).

You know life is good when your class assignment is to survey platypus along a newly re-vegetated, rural Australian creek. Peterson Creek, in the town of Yungaburra, meanders through the basaltic soils of the Atherton Tablelands in northeastern Queensland and is home to a thriving riparian faunal community. A community-driven re-vegetation project, in this predominantly agricultural landscape, began in the late 1990s on the land surrounding the creek.

To date, community members have planted over 50,000 native trees along the creek in order to re-establish the natural and endangered Mabi forest ecosystem, a uniquely dry type of rainforest with a distinctively complex shrub layer. The replanted habitat is home to visible populations of Lumholtz's Tree-kangaroos, Brush Turkeys, Barking Owls, and the iconic Platypus.

Platypus are one of three monotreme (egg-laying mammal) species remaining in the world and exist only along the east coast of Australia and in Tasmania. These evolutionarily-ancient animals, whose first specimens were thought by British scientists to be a hoax, have the combined features of a duck's bill, a beaver's tail, a mammal's fur and a venomous spur. They inhabit freshwater streams, rivers, and lakes, being particularly common on the Atherton Tablelands. As crepuscular and nocturnal creatures, platypus spend their days in riverside burrows and emerge at dusk to feed on invertebrates. They employ electrosensory organs in their bills to locate prey hidden in the river substrate. While traditionally hunted for meat and fur, platypus are now protected by Australian legislation, helping to ensure the future survival of this unique species.

As there is little published research on platypus populations in northern Queensland, and none north of Townsville, our purpose for this project was to provide baseline information on the habitat quality and platypus density in Peterson Creek. To these ends, our group surveyed over 800 meters of the creek during the wet season for platypus activity; specifically, we were interested in platypus density and foraging.

Equipped with synchronized watches, 21 individuals divided into groups of two and three, spent three evenings and an early morning stationed evenly along the creek transect, recording platypus sightings and dive patterns for an hour each time. Using this data, the group calculated the dive to surface time ratio, which has been proposed as indicative of habitat quality in terms of prey availability for platypus. Given that platypus capture their prey in the muddy riverbed, but must surface in order to ingest their food, a lower dive to surface time ratio indicates greater quantities of prey per dive and an overall better habitat for platypus.

Based on a cooperative analysis of group sighting times and observed movements of platypus, we concluded that there were a minimum of five individuals using our section of Peterson Creek. However, this is a conservative estimate, as it was difficult to distinguish between individuals, and other studies have reported twice the number of platypus in a comparable area of a stream. Using data from over 150 dives, we calculated that the average platypus spends 4.26 seconds underwater for every second on the surface, possibly indicating a lack of available prey, as the platypus had to dive more often to find food. This ratio is higher than those previously calculated for platypus in Tasmania, which ranged from 2.5 to 3.9 seconds. Our conservative density estimate and the high dive to surface time ratio suggest that Peterson Creek may not support an especially high quality platypus habitat.

Despite our results possibly indicating poor habitat quality, our personal observations and knowledge of the surrounding land use suggest that Peterson Creek may in fact serve its purpose as both adequate habitat for platypus and public recreational land. Platypus typically thrive in shady, slow-moving, and cool streams; they also do well in higher nutrient environments with abundant aquatic plants, such as Azolla, where we often observed platypus surfacing.

In addition to providing this habitat for platypus, Peterson Creek and the surrounding re-vegetated Mabi forest provide essential habitats for other native terrestrial organisms and a pleasant landscape in which both locals and tourists can walk along the creek and enjoy platypus viewing.

While our research provides a baseline assessment of the habitat in Peterson Creek, more research should be conducted to investigate the impacts of landscape alteration, such as re-vegetation projects, on aquatic populations, particularly the platypus. The future of these unique animals needs to be ensured both for their roles in the ecosystem and as an iconic Australian symbol.

If only every school project involved observing such magnificent and distinctive creatures; clearly studying abroad in Australia is an experience like no other.

Anderson lives in Berlin with her parents, Ann Cichon and Paul Anderson. She graduated from Bancroft School in Worcester, in 2010 and was a recipient of Berlin's Mable Marble scholarship.